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Archive for January, 2015

Punch Records return with their 3rd Soul Acoustic Tour with a strong line up of confirmed artists for 2015.

These include headliner Carroll Thompson, the undisputed Queen Of Lovers Rock, and one of the UK’s finest female voices who has brought her incredible vocal ability to audiences across the world for over 25 years; Raheem Bakare who has recently performed at BET Music Matters in New York; talented Londoner Dionne Reid who has previously hit the stage at

Glastonbury; Bristol’s Eva Lazarus who is the lead singer of The Dub Mafia; acclaimed Liverpudlian singer songwriter KOF makes a welcomed return to Soul Acoustic after performing in 2013; Afrobeats star Silvastone who has just been voted as one of the “Hot For 2015” artists by BBC Radio 1Xtra and Urban Music Awards 2014 winner for Best Newcomer, Stephanie McCourt.

The biggest bass festival in Croatia returns for another year over the stunning 19th century Fort Punta Christo in Pula this September 3rd – 6th…

A celebration of bass music and sound system culture, Outlook has evolved into one of the world’s leading festivals, an odyssey which draws adventure and fun seekers from across the globe for dub, reggae, hip-hop, drum ‘n’ bass, garage, dubstep, house, techno, electronica and more.

They have just announced their first acts that will be performing this year and it’s great to see a strong set of UK acts present. Check out the full list of 1st acts to be revealed below.

J Hus is a name you should start to be hearing more often, a lot of eyes and ears are on him this year. He’s from Newham, East London and has had a lot of artists already telling us to watch out for him such as Fekky. He’s released freestyles on all the big ‘urban’ channels most recently an SBTV Warm Up, last year saw him record a Street Heat with Link Up TV, and a GRM Daily Rated. His unique style is perhaps what might draw you to him, and the fact his name is all over Twitter, but it’s his controversy, flow and wordplay that made him me a fan straight away. Keep an eye on this talent…

Kyze drops the video to one of his new tracks from his forthcoming EP Oliver Twisted. Celebrating Link Up TV’s 100 million Youtube views, Mack Daddy featuring SN1’s Giggs was released as part of the celebration. S/O Rashid & Ade and the team over there.

Ratlin and Young Spray take Hucci‘s Realm instrumental and put their own stamp on it for new track Just Do It where Young Spray features first passing over to Ratlin. The two rappers sounds work well together and they control the trap instrumental as if it was made for them…

Going to meet work colleagues for dinner at Drunken Monkey, a place I had strolled past many many times before on Shoreditch High Street and hadn’t even noticed, I was a bit dubious about it being a good Chinese as they are hard to come by. I walked in and was impressed with the layout, sort of pub meets restaurant making it laid back, and the ambient lighting with cool, funky music playing in the background. I sat down and waited quite a long time before the waitress came over to take our drinks order for the two of us whilst we waited for the rest.

When the other 6/7 people arrived we turned to the menu starving and decided to order portions of Singapore noodles some with prawns and some with chicken and drunken monkey noodles which come with pork and chicken and are thicker, less spicy noodles along with chilli salt fried squid, honey smoked crispy chicken, spring rolls and egg fried rice keeping it simple.

The chilli salt fried squid is a firm favourite of mine whenever I go to a Chinese restaurant and Drunken Monkey did not let me down, the seasoning was just right not too hot, not overly battered and not over salted and the squid was soft not chewy. Both noodle dishes were delicious too, unlike some noodles I’ve had which are bland, these were full of flavour and had enough vegetables and meat in them and the portions were huge.

The honey smoked crispy chicken was also a generous portion and at only £4.90 was so nice people kept grabbing for the bowls not wanting it to disappear before they had more. I normally don’t like mixing sweet and sour dishes but I have to say this was quickly becoming a firm favourite for me too especially teamed with fried rice.

Most of us drunk Rumba Brava’s all liking the idea of rum mixed with passion fruit (well I think it might have been just me) which were strong but deliciously sweet at the same time and went well with the food. Afterwards I was given a long island ice tea for my birthday which had passed and that too went down a treat.

The only bad thing I have to say about Drunken Monkey was the service was slow, but the food and drinks came pretty quickly once ordered so it kind of made up for it. I’d love to come back and try there dim sum menu too maybe for lunch as we had the main courses mostly and sample more of there menu, but I left thoroughly impressed. Get down there on the weekend in the evening also and you might catch a well known DJ as they have ones from around the world playing. Good food, music, cocktails what else could you want?

Donae’o is about to revive funky house and this track featuring Mista Silva and Flirta D is just the beginning of what he has to come for us this year. Swear Down is as catchy as hell and is going to be a big one for the DJ’s on the radio and in the clubs…He says: “I will be making Uk Funky for the whole of 2015 and Swear Down is my first introduction coming back to a sound I love making. I will officially start my Funky campaign with a song called “Mummy No Like” at the beginning of March 2015″

The scene definitely needed a shake up and Lady Lykez has certainly caused a commotion with Nobody Can a track about being boxed in as a ‘female’ MC category and taking shots at males in the scene saying she can do what they can and do it better from Wretch 32 to Stormzy, P Money, Big Narstie and more. I hope one of them are brave enough to speak up…

UK hip hop and American hip hop meet in a brand new track from The Four Owls on High Focus Records which consist of Leaf Dog, Fliptrix, BVA & Verb T who meet with the New York don DJ Premier who provides signature sounds and cuts for this truly gritty hip hop banger. It’s not often your a worthy enough spitter to get a track produced by Premier so you know these guys are something special to have have him bless their track. This is the second single off their forthcoming second album Natural Order.

He has been named this year as one to watch by many, and a lot of people are keeping an eye on this young Grime MC from Northampton. Izzie Gibbs also part of Invasion Alert has just dropped Reload from his new EP out in March Project X, which should cause a stir…